Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue suggests a second Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) for farmers and ranchers could be coming as soon as the end of August or early September.
Appearing on AgriTalk Friday (Aug. 14) with host Chip Flory, Perdue suggested more financial assistance for cattlemen may be in the works with discussions by legislators. Livestock producers have received half of the CFAP money to date, $3.54 billion, with cattle getting the bulk of that, $3.06 billion. Hog producers have received $442 million. Perdue said the money that has not been distributed is likely due to the fact the applications have not yet been filed. The deadline for filing those applications was recently extended until September 11.
Perdue also noted the livestock cutoff date of April 15 for financial damages was likely not sufficient to cover losses by cattlemen during that time frame.
“There was there was no doubt a cliff there (April 15),” Perdue said. “But that first CFAP program covered the first quarter of the year really kind of ending on April 15. And that’s what we could determine the damages at that point.”
Perdue said CFAP2 would help “even out” support for losses incurred after April 15 “when we release those rules probably the end of this month, the first of September, and sign up will begin early in September.”
CFAP2, he says, will “rectify” the shortfall in assistance to cattlemen found in the first CFAP.
“So the cattle guys need to pay attention to the changes, the updates that are coming, because there’s potential for another payment. Really all livestock, both pork and cattle. But the cattle particularly because there was a pretty good clip on the payment.” He also noted that the 20% of the CFAP money held back would be available, too.
Asked about expanding the payment limits to individual producers, Perdue said he wasn’t ready to answer the question but that there had been much discussion in “this legislation they’re considering about expanding limits.
